by R A Baxter
The knight dismounted and marched over to Jeb, reached out a muscular right arm, and hefted him into the air by his throat. The old man wheezed and grasped at the unmoving hand, his legs kicking at nothing.
“I should awaken you forever for this,” the knight said. The voice was female.
Katie inched closer to the woman.
“Abby?”
The Ghost Knight released her steel grip on Jeb’s neck, and he dropped on his feeble feet, staggering backward until he fell against a pilaster. The tendinous black strands of Abby’s body collected into a solid bulbous mass, which then retracted and reformed with a rumble into the shape of an athletic-looking young woman in a black leather jacket, tall black boots, and black gloves. She slid the helmet from her head and revealed her short blonde hair and a face that resembled Katie’s, except that her bloodshot brown eyes rarely blinked and the lines of her cheeks and mouth were frozen into a perpetual frown.
She stared at Katie for several seconds but turned her head when a loud creaking sound distracted her. The multi-colored glass of a white-framed skylight drop from the vaulted ceiling far behind her and crash against the concrete floor, dispersing into a thousand shards.
Katie grew anxious, having watched it hit the floor through Abby’s now semi-transparent body. “Abby!” Katie sprang forward, her arms stretched in front of her.
“Stop!” Abby backed away and slid behind her horse. The animal stamped its leg, lowered its head at Katie, and snorted at her.
Katie stopped and stared at Abby, her eyebrows furrowed.
A twitch of a smile crossed Abby’s lips, accompanied by an increase in her transparency. “You can’t touch me, Katie. Your Material body might crush and destroy me. When a ghost wakes up, they cease to exist.” She looked away and her body became more solid in appearance. “If I die, I’ll be robbed of my justice. I cannot let that happen.”
Katie nodded and let her arms fall to her sides. “I’m sorry. I understand. I’m just so happy. And to think you were here the whole time! Why were you hiding from me?”
The ceiling creaked again, and Katie looked up. A four-inch-wide crack snake across four plaster panels on the ceiling. White dust rained from the fissure.
Abby glanced at a knight to her left, and the man lifted his hands upward. A light gray fog appeared and hid the entire ceiling from view before densifying into an identical ceiling, but without cracked plaster or missing skylights. Abby stepped through the black mist around her mount and approached within a few yards of Katie. Her lip quivered, and she started to fade.
She looked away and solidified again. “Your sister is dead. Don’t be fooled by the illusion you see before you. I’m only her hatred, her anger, her loathing for the dog who devoured everything she valued. I think of nothing else. I am nothing else.”
“That’s not true!” Katie’s eyes welled up. “You’re just choosing to be that way. I know you. You were always stubborn.”
“You know nothing!” Abby glanced at Katie for only a second, then looked away again. “You want to know why I hid from you? I hid from you because I couldn’t bear for you to see me like this—miserable and hopeless. I wanted you to remember me as I was—not this. Now, Farley has taken even that from me.”
“But he hasn’t. You’re here now. And when I get out of here, I’ll be able to visit you in my dreams whenever I want.”
Abby’s face tightened, her teeth clenched, and she glared at Katie and shook her fists. “Listen to me, little sister. I’m not the girl who used to ride bikes with you on sunny mornings along the docks. Abigail Frost is dead! Accept what I am! What I’ve become! I feel nothing but hate. I think about nothing but killing Farley.”
Katie tried to speak but couldn’t find her voice. Her lip trembled.
Clara rushed to her side and hugged her. “We don’t believe you! Abby is still in there somewhere. Why else would you be helping us? You still care about Katie. I know you do.”
Abby turned and stared at Katie, he face holding back emotion. The dark steeds behind her became visible through her fading body and Katie wasn’t sure want she wanted more: to have her sister back, fading into nothing, or this hate-filled stranger who’d somehow taken over her body.
Abby’s form solidified again, and her eyes bulged in fury. “It doesn’t matter who I once was!” Her screaming voice startled Jack and sent Clara and Katie cowering and stepping back from her. “Look at me! I’m a ghost! I didn’t come here to be your sister again! That woman is dead. I help you only because I need your help. Farley is in a coma. I can’t kill him, but if we can find him, I can destroy his Aspect and turn his Material body to brain-dead mush, a living corpse. That will be enough to satisfy my hunger.”
“What’s that got to do with Katie?” Jack ran to her side.
“If I can’t find Farley, I’ll need you to return to Materia and make sure he dies. You must kill him for me. If you won’t do this, your feelings for me are meaningless!”
Katie’s lower lip stiffened, and she shook away from Clara, her fists clenched. “How dare you yell at me. I don’t like Farley any more than you do, but I’m no murderer. I won’t kill for you!”
“Murderer?” Abby’s face stretched into a wicked, hideous grin. “That worthless insect murdered your sister in cold blood, and you call killing him ‘murder’? Killing that demon is no more murderous than poisoning a rabid rat! To let him live is to condone murder. Kill him or don’t call yourself my sister!”
Katie knew this wasn’t Abby speaking. The pain, the injustice, the long years of suffering, had poisoned and warped her mind. But that didn’t make it hurt any less. It took all her strength to endure it.
Clara held her tight and scowled at Abby. “Now you’re just being mean.”
“Get used to it.” Abby placed a foot in a stirrup, and with a small spring, jumped up and swung her leg over the horse’s back. She settled in the saddle, looked down at Clara, and placed her helmet back on her head. “Be grateful I was able to persuade these few knights to accompany you to the haunt. To them, it’s foolishness for a ghost to risk his life to spar with Aspects. Their purpose in life is to help their ghost brothers find peace, not to help kids get to a haunt.”
“Then maybe you should just leave,” Jack said. “We’ll find out own way.”
“It’s in our interest to make sure you return to Materia.” Abby squeezed a black pouch tied to her waste and something writhed around inside—the miniature voice of Francis Farley wailing in pain.
Katie frowned and stared at the floor.
“Mount your horses!” Abby grabbed the reins of a nearby steed and led it to Katie.
“Leave her alone,” Jack said. “She doesn’t want anything to do with you. We’re not going to help you.”
“She’s already helped me. She left a panel open below a bed in her cabin. All it took after that was a broken gas line and an electric spark. I’d have been at peace already had I not learned that the insect survived. I’m only asking her to help me finish the job.”
“You’re as much of a monster as Mr. Farley.” Clara hugged Katie tighter.
Katie looked up and saw shadows of an archway through Abby’s fading body.
“I’m sorry, Katie. I can’t control what I’ve become. I take no pleasure in the fact that I can’t be the sister you once knew.” She looked away and her body rumbled and stretched into the tendinous form of a Ghost Knight. She led her mount toward a nearby archway and disappeared beyond it.
Jeb pursed his lips, shook his head slowly and placed the reins of three horses into the palms of Clara, Katie, and Jack. “Can’t say ’tis certain these ol’ steeds’ll support the likes o’ the three o’ ye. Them knights focused all the thought they could muster on these critters. They be as densified as we could dream ’em. Mount up and we’ll be on our way.”
Jeb took the reins of his dappled gray mare, stepped into a stirrup, and swung a leg over its back. He settled in the saddle and patted his horse on the neck. The
frog leapt to the horse’s back and wrapped its tiny fingers into its hairy mane.
Ezekiel turned his steed and rode a few steps toward Jack. “The forces of Intershroud have increased since the rockslide. We must make haste. They are desperate to find thee.” He looked around the room before putting a gloved hand to his mouth. “Onward ho! Let us make for Mr. Colton’s haunt!”
More than a dozen imps glided into the great hall from the shadows of every archway. Two landed to each side of Katie and clamped their hairy hands around her arms. She pulled back, trying to free her arms, her eyes wide with fear, but soon realized their intentions were friendly. Gusts of air from the wings of passing imps blew her hair into her face; she turned and saw them hovering in pairs, hefting Clara and Jack onto the backs of their mounts.
Katie’s feet left the ground and her legs dangled in the air while the imps positioned her over her steed and lowered her onto a warm leather saddle. The stallion felt like a horse-shaped cushion of air. It bothered her not being able to see her own legs through the thick black mist below them.
Ezekiel aimed his sword at the archway through which Abby had gone and clicked his tongue. His companions lined up behind him and disappeared through the archway, the imps leaping and gliding after them.
Jack was surprised when Clara smiled wide and pulled the reins to one side, leading her horse in a circle. Anyone could see she’d spent a lot of time with horses. Jack, however, hardly dared move and kept staring down at his steed.
“You’ve never ridden before, have you?” Katie sidled next to him.
Jack shook his head.
“Don’t ye be afeared, me friend,” Jeb said. “The best thing about a dreamed-up horse is they does what they was dreamed up to do. He’ll get ye where ye’s going, that be certain. Now, let’s be off.” Jeb steered his mount next to Clara’s and waved a hand to urge the three teens on.
Katie waited for Jack to muster courage to click his tongue and give his mount a timid kick. The steed lurched forward through the archway and Jack leaned back, his knuckles white from holding onto the reins. Katie followed him. Jeb trotted next to Clara and the two galloped through the arch.
Jack pulled himself up straight and smiled now that he knew that he could slow his horse using only his thoughts. In his mind, he told his horse to follow close behind the Ghost Knights. He chuckled at how they paid no heed to the landscape as they rode. The knights approached a thick cluster of pines rooted in their path, and a short female rider to his right flipped her left wrist and sent the trees shifting to either side of the trail. He liked the way she held the sinewy stands of her ghostly body inward, giving an attractiveness to her figure that the other knights lacked. Her brown hair hung from the back of her helmet in a single twined braid.
Jack looked back and watched the trees return to their original location behind them. He nodded a ‘thank you’ to the woman, but soon questioned the wisdom of showing her gratitude. From that point on, he caught her looking away every time he glanced at her. He hoped no one else had noticed, but the next time he turned to Katie, she smiled wryly and gave him an encouraging wink. Jack’s face reddened, and he looked away, shaking his head.
A few minutes later, a hefty knight riding next to Ezekiel leveled his lance at a low pile of loose logs and blasted them with a narrow beam of silent silver light. The knight’s left eye glowed red and telescoped from his face plate, improving his aim. Jack threw a hand up to shield his eyes, and when the brightness diminished, the logs had dissipated with it. The same knight then took aim and blasted a hawk circling in the sky, high in front of them to their left. Jack surmised it was an Intershroud spy, but that didn’t explain why the man ignored a second hawk when it darted out of a tree and dashed away to their right. Perhaps his mechanical eye told him when a bird was just a bird.
A tall hill ascended into view in front of them, and the heavy-set rider next to Katie placed his hands to each side of his head. The central ten feet of the mound melted away, trees and soil abruptly sinking into an unseen void and carving a narrow passageway straight through the mount.
Jack envied their power. Nothing could stand in their way. He joined the band of riders passing through the divide and enjoyed watching the exposed soil and severed roots and rocks rising high to each side. They exited the other side of the hill and rode through tall, dense aspens for five minutes before the view opened to a wide field of grass and a tall mountain to their right.
A solitary crow dived from around the bend ahead of them and Ezekiel raised a hand to halt the riders. The bird landed in Ezekiel’s lap, out of Jack’s line of sight. The leader of the Ghost Knights gazed down at the bird for ten seconds before holding it out on his hand and watching it take flight the way it had come. He turned to a large knight to his left. Jack shivered at the sight of him. Five-inch tusks ran down from his visor on both sides of his mouth.
“Intershroud troops have gathered beyond the next bend,” the tusked knight said. “We shall need to descend below ground.”
The tusked ghost gripped his lance with both hands and aimed its tip at the terrain in front of Ezekiel. Jack saw, through the knight’s fading body, a reddish cloud emerge around the rocks and grass in a ten-foot circle before dissipating, revealing a new subterranean tunnel. A brown cobblestone ramp led through the round tunnel, constructed of rough-textured red bricks with lamps burning on wrought iron sconces situated along the walls.
Ezekiel motioned for everyone to follow him. The steeds made no sound against the cobblestones, making it obvious to Jack why the Ghost Knights could travel so easily undetected. The only sounds were an occasional grunt from a horse and the regular screams from miniature voices every time a knight squeezed the pouch tied to their belt.
Even the frog sat unnaturally quiet.
Jack turned to Abby. “Why don’t we just go all the way to Silverton below ground?”
“Takes too much mental power, me friend,” Jeb answered for her. “Ghosts fade fast, shaping things like this. ’Tis certain, we’ll need to come above ground shortly.”
“I’m glad you came back to help us.” Clara sidled next to Jeb.
“’Tis certain ye are an expert with a horse, Miss Clara. Yet another thing ye have in common with me little Alice. Ye could be her twin, ye could. Ride a lot, do ye?”
“Every night when I dream,” Clara said. “I never rode a horse while I was awake.”
Jeb chuckled to himself. “Me Alice used to say she dreamed about horses.”
“I’m sorry for what happened to her. It must’ve been horrible.” Clara’s eyes teared up.
“’Tis certain a man never could o’ felt worse than I felt then. Never saw the face again o’ the villain’s what took her from me. Far’s I know, he got his due ages ago. Don’t make no difference to me. It might as well o’ happened yesterday.”
Clara forced a smile. “So, now you live in a real live haunted house?”
Jeb laughed. “I’d give me toe knuckles to give ye a ripe big hug. Truth is, I’ve not much need for me haunt no more. But it warms me old heart to think that it may save the life of as fine a young lady as ye. It’s like I truly is saving me own little Alice.”
Elongated shadows of the leading riders played along the curves of the tunnel’s brick walls, and Jack squinted at the daylight now emanating from the round exit at the top of the sloped path ahead. Jack galloped up the ramp behind the Ghost Knights and out into a shallow, grassy ravine sandwiched between hills thickly smothered with pines. The last two riders, Clara and Jeb, barley arrived in the gulley behind Jack before tall green grass appeared behind them, replacing the tunnel’s opening.
The tusked knight, who’d been maintaining the subterranean passageway, now appeared only as a faint gray mist. He slumped forward on his steed and his features started to regain color and opacity. The hefty knight behind him placed a hand on his back to hold him steady. Ezekiel waved his hand around and the already-thick forest grew three times denser with tall lodgepole p
ines. He made another motion with his hand, signaling the party to move forward with caution.
The horses traveled only a few hundred feet before Ezekiel held up a palm, warning his posse to stop. A rumbling noise grew louder, and the ground shook with increasing intensity.
Jack’s jaw dropped. A vast herd of bison lumbered across their path, tearing through the high grass and kicking up clouds of dust in their wake. Jack looked at Katie, and they smiled.
Jack gazed beyond the hundreds of hefty beasts and spotted a tall church spire peeking above the trees on the far side of the open field. He turned to Katie and Clara, pointed at it, and yelled over the roar of the stampede, “That must be Silverton! We’re almost there!”
Katie shielded her eyes from the dust storm the lumbering bison kicked up, turned and found Clara staring at Abby’s frightening form.
“I’m sorry about what Farley did to you,” Clara said.
“Save it.” Abby kept her gaze forward. “Your pity won’t give me back my life.”
“Killing Farley won’t either,” Clara said.
“No, but it’ll give me peace. You don’t know what I suffered. I created that camp to be a place where I could live without fear of Intershroud. It should’ve borne my name. Then Farley came along, harassing me. Pestering me. I should’ve killed him then!” She turned to Katie. “You could’ve killed him! Why didn’t you? What kind of woman lets a man live who murdered her own sister? You owe it to me to kill him!”
Katie looked down. “Dad said your death was an accident.”
“That coward! He knew how I died. He was always too scared to stand up to the Mighty Intershroud.”
“How do you know it wasn’t an accident?” Jack rode up between Abby and Clara. “Farley wasn’t in the cave when it exploded.”